Electrical and Computer Engineering

Engineering

Legacy Courses

ECE 375: Computer Organization and Assembly Language Programming

ECE 375 is an exciting course that introduces students to the
basics of computer organization and basic computing paradigms.
Using a Atmel ATMega128 microcontroller, students will interface
with their TekBots and be able to see how their programs and
concepts are put into action in a real device.

Very important in any computing system is a method of observing the
results. Your mega128 board has an on-board LCD display that can be
used to observe the results of various actions. This section asks
you to create a simple scrolling marquee on your LCD display.

Often times in computing you need to work with data types that are
not standard to the system you are using. For example, the AVR
architecture is only 8 bits, what if you wanted to work with 16
bit numbers? In this section you will design a 'simple' function to
perform math on some 16 bit numbers.

In engineering there are always many ways of solving a problem or
designing a system. Your job as an engineer is to be able to
examine the designs and pick the 'best' one. You have built and
compiled two different versions of the bumper TekBot in this
course. Now you are going to make one more version, this time
using external interrupts on the AVR. You will then compare and
contrast the three different versions and explain when and why
each solution is better.

In this lab we are going to explore in detail how a simple computer
processor might work. To do this we are going to simulator called
the 'Extremely Simple Computer' (ESC) simulator. Using this tool
you will be able to explore computing in depth and gain
understanding.

For your project you will need to work together with your partner
to make a remote controlled TekBot. You will need to use the IR
Communications port on your AVR board to control another AVR
board that is connected to the TekBot itself. You need to be able
to make your TekBot go forward, backward, stop, and turn either
direction.